Iggy Pop heralds Justin Bieber as the future of rock ‘n’ roll

Amnesty International’s Belgian arm recently ran an attention-grabbing publicity campaign of battered and abused pop culture icons making statements contrary to what they stand for. So there was Iggy Pop quipping ‘The future of rock ‘n‘ roll is Justin Bieber’; the Dalai Lama going ‘A man who does not have a Rolex watch at 50 has failed in life’; and Karl Lagerfeld declaring Hawaiian shirts and flip-flips as the high-fashion epitome of elegance.

It’s a clever play on the idea that people will say anything under torture. The latest twist though on this is that Amnesty has had to pull off the ads for not getting the permission of Iggy Pop and the Dalai Lama to run these images and statements in the first place. How unfortunate — it was a great idea.